speach engine

[doggs]

i have a question on speach engines i have win 7 64 and it comes with a speech engine. but as i will be using "sarah" for homework and papers due blah blah i can justify spending the money on dragon speech engine but my question is does dragon work better than the win 7 default engine. i also have more questions but will label them correctly on a seprate post and yes i have a spelling problem. sarah does all right with my problems with spelling though.

thank you in advance
michael

[raybe]

My own opinion, Dragon works much better but there is a catch. There are for more features and corrections for Dragon but it seems to be more sensitive to background noises and the mic you use. Also configuration. I'm still surprised Windows still has a program.

WAIT a minute!! But lets make this clear which I just noticed. What exactly are you talking about when you use the phrase speech engine? Voice to text or just SAPI configurations built into Windows to read? The real differences becomes the quality of the voices themselves which I do not believe Windows will except all. There is where I can be off base and I'm sorry because I'm not on my computer just to remind myself real quickly.
raybe

[Art]

doggs,

I am still surprised that the one with my Win7 works as well as it does. No real problems at all and I'm using the build in microphone in my monitor.

I also have used Dragon and it wanted a higher quality microphone (I used a USB one). Raybe is correct, Dragon is somewhat more sensitive to noise and as a result your pronounciation needs to be clearly spoken in most instances.

Bottom line: both are pretty good SR engines and it come down to a matter of personal preference.  If you can, get with a friend who has Dragon or some place where you can experiment with it a bit before purchasing.

Good luck!

[Carl2]

   I also use Dragon for speach reconition, with Hal I don't use their mic input because it will automaticaly input the sentence and I like a chance to read it before entering it.  Dragon will give much higher accuracy if you have a set of documents it can read before using it.  Dragon will give you a signal to noise (S/N) ratio when setting up the mic, standard mics give 18 to 21 S/N,  USB input mics are preferred and should give higher S/N,  22 to 26 is pretty good.  I've gone to the wireless mics which give good S/N ratios and you avoid all the wires.
Carl2

[doggs]

thank you for the input.
      i am using the defaut windows at the moment works ok at running windows (grrr need to train it more i think) but Sarah has a hard time understanding my words correctly.
     i hope to use Sarah for college and it would be much easier if i can just talk. maybe a headset or just keep training my dad has the original dragon nautaly speaking but i havent played with it yet and i realy need to just sit down for a few hours if i can and train the engine i think. this would realy tell me if its working right but how much time do i spend training it before i know and i have a two year old so the mic cant be sensitive to a two year old running around playing

[raybe]

From what I read the 1st versions of Dragon were terrible. I could be wrong. This was info I read but did not experience myself. I do have the newer version now and that is my only reference for a personal opinion. I really feel you should go with a headset and mic for closer proximity to your voice. Haven't tried anything wireless as of yet. But Carl2 did give you some good info but the stats are always questionable because it is not only the equipment being used but the type of environments they use and unless it is as close to your situation which is highly unlikely the specs always have room thus the plus and minus used.
Even frequency response. But they have an obligation to bench mark mics, speakers, ect.

raybe

[sybershot]

how much time do i spend training it before i know and i have a two year old so the mic cant be sensitive to a two year old running around playing

  Your training windows 7 speech engine, when ever you do text to speech inside word, note pad, E-mail etc.. I have 5 kids running around and they do not really affect my windows 7 text to speech. I did the training exercises twice and the I open note pad and do some single word training, mostly words I use in commands for Trinity (my Hal's name). 
   I used one of the earlier versions of Dragon many years ago, it was not all that great. I would not recommend using a old version of Dragon ,over a new version  of Dragon, windows vista or windows 7 speech engines. 

[Carl2]

   I've been going through my CD's for Hal related files, noticed I started out with version 3,  I'm now at 10.1 needed for win 7 64 bit, I've gotten used to dragon and the dragon commands.  I'd say Dragon started getting pretty good at version 7 and has improved a bit since then.  As far as I know you will  need need v 10.1 or higher to have it work with win 7 64 bit.
  All the mics I've used were tested in the dragon mic setup which gives the s/n ratio.  The majority of the mics sold will give you a s/n ratio of 18 to 21 the same as you'd get from a radio shack $3 mic.
  Anyways with dragon dictate into some notepad or dragonpad and save the files and let dragon read them, this works great to improve the relationship of which words are used together.  I also have a txt with a list of stores, friends names, street names ect, after reading the list it gets them right the frist time.
Carl2